The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is located at 1071 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street in New York City. Frank Lloyd Wright was the architect for this building, which is a very modern circular structure containing an interior spiral walkway leading to the dome above the central atrium. It is shaped like a teacup or an upside down terraced hill (Willensky and White, 425). As described by Robert A.M. Stern, Thomas Mellins, and David Fishman (807-808), the complexity of the interior of the structure is such that a visitor will benefit from having a floor plan and might well expect to spend the better part of a day going through its many galleries.
The initial impression of this building from the street is of a somewhat bland curvilinear structure, which is interesting because it was built in 1959. When one enters the interior and gazes up at the skylight in the dome, a curious sense of dissonance emerges. This skylight is more elaborate and Victorian than the structure it tops. The structure has also been compared to an inverted ziggurat - "a stepped or winding pyramidal temple of Babylonian design" ("The Building," 1).
Wright departed in this organic structure from typical museum design which tends to lead visitors through a series of interconnected rooms. His plan moves people to the top of the building via an elevator and then encourages them to move downward on a gentle slope of a continuous ramp. It has also been suggested that the "spiral design recalled a nautilus shell, with continuous spaces flowing freely into one another" ("The Building," 1).
The tower presents a smooth facade that is interrupted by windows which segment its different levels. The building was augmented in 1992 by an adjoining rectangular tower that is taller than the original spiral. This was designed by Gwathmey Siegel and Associates. In 2007, the exterior and infrastructure underwent a restoration of its concrete facade.
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